The conference season is less than half complete, but Virginia Tech’s place in the lower-tier of the ACC basketball standings is all but certain. A third consecutive last-place finish would not surprise, and the NCAA tournament seems light years away for a program with one such appearance in the last 18 seasons.

That pall, evidenced by a winless January and punctuated by Wednesday’s no-show at Boston College, makes Saturday’s home game versus Maryland critical for second-year coach James Johnson.

Tech is 21-31 on Johnson’s watch, 5-22 against the conference. That’s troubling for any big whistle, especially one who’s yet to meet his boss, a boss whose first headline decision may be whether to retain a fledgling coach beset with misfortune during his brief tenure.

Whit Babcock was introduced as the Hokies’ athletic director Wednesday, replacing the man who hired Johnson, the retired Jim Weaver. While Babcock met staff and media before jetting to ACC meetings in Florida, Johnson was in Chestnut Hill, Mass., preparing his team to play Boston College.

The Eagles (6-14, 2-5 ACC) are the only league team with a worse overall record than Tech (8-12, 1-7). Prior to Wednesday, their only victories since Dec. 1 were over the Hokies, in Blacksburg, and Division II Philadelphia University.

The first meeting between Tech and BC was close, the Eagles prevailing 62-59. Wednesday night was not.

Boston College throttled Tech 76-52, the Hokies’ seventh straight January defeat. The Eagles led by as many as 30 points and didn’t even score in the final 6:30. This embarrassment on the heels of Saturday’s 20-point setback at Virginia.

Can Tech win again? Even with C.J. Barksdale and Adam Smith battling injuries? Sure. Future home opponents Maryland, Miami and North Carolina State are vulnerable. In fact, the Hokies opened ACC play in December with an impressive, come-from-behind overtime victory at Miami.

Will Tech win again? Not with half-baked efforts such as Wednesday’s.

Saturday will be Babcock’s first in-person impressions of Johnson and his team, hence the game’s magnitude, and rest-assured, Babcock, a former college baseball player, knows what quality basketball looks like. He was the athletic director at Cincinnati the past two-plus years, during which time the Bearcats earned two NCAA tournament bids and reached the 2012 Sweet 16.

Previously, Babcock worked in administration at Missouri and West Virginia. Mizzou made the NCAAs in each of Babcock’s three final years there, advancing to the 2009 Elite Eight. While at West Virginia, he saw the Mountaineers reach the 2005 Elite Eight and 2006 Sweet 16.

None of this is to suggest that Babcock is considering, or is predisposed to, a coaching change. He appears too measured and accomplished for such snap judgments and has assured all department personnel that they start with a “blank slate.”

Moreover, Babcock is, from all accounts “a relationship guy,” and he figures to place considerable import on his interactions with Johnson. There’s little doubt Babcock will like Johnson — most everyone does — but his assessment of Johnson’s leadership, teaching and strategic abilities will be paramount.

Selecting Johnson two years ago to replace the fired Seth Greenberg was risky, if only because the ACC is rarely the place for on-the-job training. At 42 Johnson is no kid, but he lacked the head-coaching experience most consider a prerequisite for such a rugged conference.

Indeed, prior to Johnson, the only career assistants to land ACC head-coaching positions in the previous 25 years were Virginia’s Jeff Jones in 1990, North Carolina’s Bill Guthridge in 1997 and Miami’s Frank Haith in 2004, Guthridge being an extraordinary case after more than 30 years on Dean Smith’s staff.

Guthridge and Jones enjoyed considerable success, as has Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon, promoted from Ben Howland’s staff in 2002 when Howland departed the then-Big East Panthers for UCLA. But they inherited programs far more established than the Tech operation Johnson took over in 2012.

Greenberg was a two-time ACC coach of the year and, including the conference tournament, his Hokies went 50-40 versus the league from 2007-11, better than everyone except Duke and North Carolina, unbalanced schedule duly noted. But Tech tied for last in the league at 4-12 in Greenberg's final season and earned only one NCAA bid in his nine years as his relationship with Weaver frayed.

When prized Greenberg recruits Montrezl Harrell and Dorian Finney-Smith bailed for Louisville and Florida, respectively, before Johnson’s first game, the rookie coach was in a bind.

Tech opened 7-0 under Johnson, including a home conquest of 15th-ranked Oklahoma State, but Erick Green, the nation’s leading scorer and the ACC player of the year, could carry the depleted roster only so far. Yet a 2-13 slide to end a 13-19 season was alarming, regardless of transfers and injuries.

This season’s decline could be as pronounced. Tech is aimless on both ends of the floor, evidence that Johnson may have lost the room.

Whether players have checked out is debatable, but there’s no doubt fans have. This season’s average home crowd of 4,559 is a 45.7-percent drop from the 8,395 of Greenberg’s final year and the Hokies’ worst since 2003.

Accomplished coaches such as Jones, now at Old Dominion, Miami’s Jim Larranaga and Clemson’s Brad Brownell admire and respect Johnson. He’s engaging and accessible, and his firm discipline of Barksdale last year and Cadarian Raines this season revealed him to be principled, even in the face of defeats.

But is Johnson capable of pulling the Hokies out of this malaise? Are two seasons an accurate barometer? How much longer can the athletic department afford, financially and psychologically, a drifting men’s basketball program?

Babcock has 11 games and six weeks to decide.

I can be reached at 247-4636 or by e-mail at dteel@dailypress.com. Follow me at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP